


Not Always What We Seem (Rarely What We Dream)

by WritingDaydreams



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Marinette is a Unicorn, Nino is a Wizard, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tags Are Hard, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29452548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingDaydreams/pseuds/WritingDaydreams
Summary: “We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream. Still I have read, or heard it sung, that unicorns when time was young, could tell the difference ‘twixt the two - the false shining and the true, the lips’ laugh and the heart’s rue.”A Miraculous retelling of Peter S. Beagle’sThe Last Unicorn
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Alya Césaire & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Nino Lahiffe, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Nino Lahiffe
Kudos: 6
Collections: February 2021 - Rewrite a classic





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here is the first chapter of my Miraculous retelling of the classic story _The Last Unicorn_ By Peter S. Beagle. I hope that you enjoy!
> 
> Thank you to my beta Spark_Doodles on Discord and As always, a huge “Thank You” to [ Khanofallorcs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khanofallorcs/pseuds/Khanofallorcs) for being an absolutely Awesome Beta!

“Unicorns are long gone if indeed, they ever were. This is a forest like any other”

The sound of human voices reached Marinette, causing her to slightly panic. She slowly lifted her head from her grazing spot and made to follow them, moving so that not even their horses knew that she was near.

It had been many, many years since humans had entered her lilac wood, her companions mainly consisting of the fauna who have decided to call the wood their home. She like to watch the foxes birth their kits and watch them grow, their antics a favored source of amusement.

But these two men who entered the wood filled her with a strange mixture of feelings: those of tenderness… and of terror.

“Then why do the leaves never fall here, Max?” the first man’s companion questioned. “Or the snow? I’m telling you, there must be one unicorn left in the world, and it may live in this forest. And if that's the case, then we might as well move on. We’ll find no game here.”

“That’s all hearsay, Kim,” said the first man, Max, pausing to push his glasses higher onto the bridge of his nose with a finger without fumbling with the reins. “You’ve read the same books and heard the same songs as I have, but facts are facts. It's been ages since anyone has even heard a single whisper of unicorns in these parts, or in any others for that matter.”

“...my grandmother saw a unicorn once…,” said the larger man, Kim, in a quieter voice, making Marinette’s long ears twitch at the sound.

“Oh?” The shorter man asked, his curiosity piqued. “Did she try to capture it with a golden bridle, as the stories say?”

“No, she didn’t have one,” Kim responded with a far off look on his face. “You only need to be pure of heart…”

Max pushed his glasses up his nose once more, nearly dropping the reins this time as he asked, “Did she say what the unicorn looked like? Pliny describes them as being very ferocious, with a body similar to a horse’s, but with the head of a deer, the feet of an elephant, the tail of a bear, and a black horn approximately two cubits in length…”

Both the larger man and Marinette scoffed at that description.

‘I don’t know what an elephant is,’ she thought with disdain, ‘but I certainly do not have the feet of one!’

“And the Chinese-“

“Look,” Kim cut in, stopping the smaller man’s deluge of facts with a wave of his hand and an exasperated look. “All that my grandmother had said about the encounter was that the unicorn smelled good. That was all.”

A moment of silence passed between them then, the only sounds being that of the thudding of their horses’ hooves on the soft ground. Marinette still silently paced alongside them to keep her eye on the trespassers.

Max was the first to break the quiet. “Why do you think they all left? If there were unicorns, that is.”

“Who knows,” Kim said with a shrug. “Times do change, and they change often. Would you call this day and age a good time for unicorns?” He asked the smaller man with a questioning glare.

“No… no I suppose not,” the smaller of the two said sheepishly before another inquisitive look appeared on his face. “I wonder if any person before us has ever thought their time was a good one for unicorns...” he trailed off, lost in thought.

Another moment of silence had passed before the larger of the two spoke up. “Well, there’s still plenty of light left. Let’s go someplace else to try our luck.”

“That's not true, is it?” Marinette thought frantically as she kept pace with the hunters, following them as they left her wood. “It can't be! I mean that it has been … well, a very long time since I have seen another unicorn, being as we are pretty solitary creatures and all… It has been a few centuries since I last saw my parents and… when was the last time that I saw cousin Bridgette, again?”

Try as she might, though her memory was long, it was not without its faults, and that frustrated her to no end.

She looked down at her cloven hooves and noted that her coat was now the color of snow falling on a moonlit night, and no longer the careless color of seafoam. She may be immortal, but that didn't stop her from getting older, though she didn’t feel as old as she was supposed she was. 

She had paced her woods for hours, through the remaining daylight hours until the moon rose high into the sky. She argued with herself, refusing to believe that she was the very last of her kind. 

“There must be other unicorns out there… somewhere… right?”

With that thought running rampant in her mind and one last look over her shoulder, she stepped onto the path and raced out of her woods, determined to find out the truth.

“Am I the last unicorn?”

  
  
  
  


She traveled through the night, barely stopping except for some water when her thirst became too much, or to briefly admire the colors that painted the sky as the sun rose over the eastern horizon.

It was just past midmorning when she came upon a small farm. There was a man with bushy gray hair tending to his crop of cabbages that she had noticed. She had tried to silently skirt around him, but to no avail, as he glanced up when she came close and inhaled sharply.

“Oh,” the farmer breathed out, a look of awe overtaking his facial features. “Oh, you're a pretty thing, ain’t you?”

Marinette paused when she heard the truth leave the man’s mouth, as unicorns are inherently vain creatures. She flicked an ear at him, feeling vaguely wary in his presence, but she preened at him nonetheless.

Did he know what she was?

That was when she saw him try to silently take off his belt.

“Steady now, you gorgeous thing, you,” he said before he lunged at her, attempting to capture her with the worn leather in his hands. Marinette avoided him with ease, seeing as he had no finesse in his hunting skills.

‘You’ll have to do better than that, old man,’ the unicorn thought teasingly as she continued to evade his attempts to snare her. ‘I’ve been doing this since before your ancestors walked this plane.’

“Easy, easy now, you pretty little mare,” he said with a glint of greed in his yellow eyes. “Clean you up real good, take you to the fair…”

Marinette’s gemstone eyes went wide when she heard that, shock and anger clouding her judgment. “...mare? A...a horse?! What on earth?! How dare you…!”

With a flick of her horn, she ripped the belt from the man’s hands, flinging it far and wide before she took off at a gallop, no longer caring who saw her as she raced away.

“How could this be? Has it really been so long since humans have seen unicorns? Have they really forgotten what one looks like?” 

Her emotions fueled her as she ran ever faster over fields and plains, past towns and villages full of people, all of them exclaiming how pretty a horse she was.

“I wonder what they think when they look at other people… houses... trees...  _ actual _ horses… their own  _ children…?!” _

As Marinette entered yet another field, she slowed down to a walk to catch her breath, shaking her mane as she did. ‘Then again,” she thought, ‘if humans no longer know what they are looking at and have forgotten about unicorns, there may be more of us in hiding yet, unknown and glad of it.’

She had never realized that humans had changed, and the world with them, because the unicorns were gone….

Long moments of silence went by as she calmly walked through a field of wildflowers, taking in their scent and beauty, before she heard a quiet song and some subtle bickering floating on the not-so-soft breeze.

She looked over to identify the sounds, only to come upon a lavender butterfly and a small, red ladybug.

“I’m telling you, Nooroo. You shouldn’t be out in weather like this,” the ladybug chided the butterfly. “It isn’t good for your wings…”

But the butterfly, Nooroo, just continued on with his little song for a moment longer before he spied Marinette’s white coat gleaming against the background of colorful wildflowers. “Bonsoir, Mademoiselle,” he thoroughly cheered as he landed gracefully on her horn, ignoring his ladybug friend. “I am but a roving gambler, how do you do?”

“Don’t you ignore me,” the ladybug said to the butterfly with a glower, tucking her wings under her hard shell as she landed beside her more colorfully winged friend.

“Butterfly, you shouldn’t be out in such weather as this,” Marinette said softly, not wanting to startle the small insects with her voice. “The wind is so rough and chilly, you’ll catch a cold and die long before your time. You should listen to your ladybug friend.”

“See, I told you -“ the ladybug started, only to be cut off by the butterfly.

“Death takes what man would keep, and leaves what men would lose… Blow wind and crack your cheeks...I warm my hands on the fires of life...and get four-way relief!”

The unicorn blinked at the butterfly’s outburst before she turned to the ladybug and asked, “Is he always like this?”

“Nooroo can be a little… eccentric at times,” the little spotted beetle said with an insect’s approximation of a shrug. “I’m Tikki; it’s nice to meet you, miss…”

Marinette’s blue eyes smiled at the little red bug as she answered, “Marinette, my name is Marinette.”

“Oh!” The butterfly exclaimed with a flutter of his wings, his dramatics causing their attention to focus back on him. “What a beautiful name for such a beautiful creature! Truly there is none other like you who walks amongst us mere mortals!”

“Nooroo, don’t be so insensitive!” Tikki admonished.

“Do you know what I am, Nooroo?” The unicorn asked with desperate curiosity. 

“Excellent!” He exclaimed, “you are a fishmonger!”

This brought a look of disgust to both ladybug and unicorn, but the butterfly kept on going with his blathering.

“You are my everything… you are my sunshine… your name is a golden bell that is hung in my heart, and I would break my body to pieces to call you once by your name….”

“Then please, say it,” she said desperately, longing to know if others knew if she still existed. “I beg of you, tell me what I am, if you know it!”

“You are...Rumplestiltskin! Gotcha!” Nooroo laughed, finding his joke to be funny, and ignoring the havoc that he had caused.

Marinette deflated, feeling as if the wind had been taken out of her sails by the butterfly’s cruel joke. “I should have known,” she lamented despondently. “It serves me right to expect that a butterfly would know what I am. All that they know are poems and scraps of songs.”

“Pay him no mind, Marinette. It’s only part of his nature,” Tikki soothed in a calming voice. 

“Unicorn.”

The word was said in such an academic way, that it brought two of the trio’s thoughts to a halt.

“Old French,  _ unicorne _ . Latin,  _ unicornis _ . Literally, one-horned: unus, one and cornu, a horn,” Nooroo announced as he fluttered his wings, looking pleased as punch. “A fabulous animal resembling a horse with one horn.”

“Oh,” she said quietly, shock and awe coating her voice in equal measure. “So you do know me! Please, have you seen any others like me anywhere? Do you know where they might have gone?” The unicorn implored.

“Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment, chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie…,” came the reply of the lavender butterfly.

“Nooroo, please be serious…” the little ladybug said in an exasperated voice. “She just wants to know where her people are.”

Tears began to gather at the corners of crystalline blue eyes as Marinette pleaded, “Please, all I want to know is if there are other unicorns somewhere in the world.”

The butterfly lapsed into silence for a moment before he began to intone in an ominous voice:

“You can find your people if you are brave. They passed down all the roads long ago, and the RED BULL ran close behind them and covered their hoof prints.”

He then fluttered off of her horn, heading off into the great unknown as he once again took up his singing, “‘Tant que cette eau coulera doucement vers ce ruisseau qui borde la prairie, je t'aimerai’, me répétait Sylvie, l'eau coule encor, elle a changé pourtant.”

“Wait,” she called out, though her voice was but a whisper in the wind. “Wait!” Marinette called out louder. “What is the Red Bull? Where can I find it? Please!”

“I’m so sorry, Marinette,” Tikki said with a small voice. “I wish that I knew more so that I could explain, but Nooroo doesn’t like to share his secrets, not even with me.”

The little ladybug moved to the tip of the unicorn’s horn, preparing to take off. “I must get going. Someone has to keep that careless butterfly safe from his own stupidity, and unfortunately that someone is me. Do take care now, and stay safe.”

“Thank you, Tikki, and you as well,” Marinette said as the little spotted beetle opened her wings and took off after her butterfly friend.

She watched them flutter off for a moment more before she continued on her way, aiming for a little wood that was a few meters off as the sun began its descent through the sky.

‘The Red Bull…. what could Nooroo have meant by that, I wonder,’ the unicorn thought sleepily as she found a large, sturdy oak tree that was surrounded by a thick green moss to sleep under. ‘It was probably another song, though Tikki didn’t think so...”

As Marinette settled down for the night, a last thought that popped into her head as she closed her eyes was, “At least they recognized me for what I am…”

Unicorns are usually the wariest of all of the wild things…

...so if she had not gone to sleep dreaming of home, she most certainly would have woken up at the sound of footsteps muffled by rags coming ever closer towards her….


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, a huge “Thank You” to [ Khanofallorcs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khanofallorcs/pseuds/Khanofallorcs) for being an absolutely Awesome Beta!

It was the voices that first roused her from her slumber.

“And here I thought that I’d seen the last of them,” a distinctly feminine voice said in a gloating kind of way, before calling out a question. “What do you see, Igor?”

“... a dead horse?” A low, gravelly voice said in a questioning tone. “Not, not dead,” it retracted. “Give it to the Harpy or the Manticore.”

“You are a fool,” the female voice said dismissively with a scoff. “And what about you, Juggler? What do you see?”

“Me?” A male’s voice, no older than a teenager’s, questioned in disbelief. “I...I only see a horse, Ma’am. A white mare.”

“A white mare… you don't say…,” the feminine voice trailed off in a way that belied that she knew that the young man was lying. 

With that, Marinette drifted off once more into unconsciousness.

* * *

It was several hours later that a booming voice had sounded, startling her awake.  **“CREATURES OF NIGHT, BROUGHT TO LIGHT!”**

Marinette snapped her eyes open to find herself in what appeared to be a solid wooden structure that was closed in on three sides with iron bars on the open fourth wall. Those bars of iron made her body shrink away from them, as they seemed to whisper evilly to one another in never-ending clawed, pattering voices.

Through those bars, she saw a large, boorish young man leading a group of people from one cage to the next, spouting off nonsense about how a manticore was captured as it was chewing on werewolves to sweeten its breath.

“And over here’s the dragon,” he said as he herded a group of spectators along to the next cage. “It breathes fire ev’ry so often, usually at people who poke at it,” the muscular man warned, looking pointedly at a little boy around the rambunctious age of eight. “It speaks seventeen languages badly, and is subject to gout,” he prattled on.

“Tell me, dudette, what do you see?” a voice asked, startling the unicorn out of her disoriented thoughts, making her shake her mane to clear her head. 

She looked over in bewilderment towards the source of the noise and saw a young man with deep caramel-colored skin leaning with his back against the unforgiving wood of her prison.

He made a hand gesture towards the other cages and quietly said, “Look around at your fellow legends, and tell me what you see.”

Marinette looked at him with gemstone eyes narrowed in suspicion before asking, “Who are you?”

He turned to face her slightly, showing her his startling toffee-colored irises as he answered her. “My name is Nino… Nino the magician,” he said, looking away and smiling a self-deprecating smile. “You… wouldn’t have heard of me,” he clarified, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment.

The man from earlier came one cage closer, using that gruff voice of his to tell the entranced crowd nearby that the occupant of the cage before them was a pretty infamous three-headed canine that usually guarded the gates of the Underworld.

Blue eyes glanced at the cage, widening in disbelief. “Are they mad? That poor thing is just a hungry, mangy, and  _ very _ unhappy dog!” She exclaimed in a hushed voice, not wanting to draw anyone else’s attention. “Are those people blind or something?”

“It’s definitely ‘or something’,” the magician muttered in a low tone so that only Marinette could hear him. “Look again,” he encouraged, nodding once more towards the other occupied cages.

And look she did. As it turned out, the “dragon” was a crocodile, the “manticore” was just a lion, the so-called “satyr” was a gorilla with a twisted foot, and…

“Ragnarok is near!” The man bellowed out as he moved the group to the next cage down the line. “On that fateful day when the gods will fall, the Serpent of Midgard will spit its venom at Thor and…”

“Pfft,” the unicorn snorted in amusement. “That ‘Midgard Serpent’ is nothing more than a simple garden snake!”

She turned to the magician and said in an uneasy voice, “These are just spells of... seeming, not of true creation.”

Nino smirked at her answer. “I knew it! That cunning fox can’t pull the wool over your eyes,” he said with a shake of his head. “She can’t turn cream into butter, but she can make a crocodile look like a dragon to those who wish to believe it. Same with a lion as a manticore, a garden snake for the Midgard Serpent...”

Then he turned to look at her as he said, “... and a unicorn for a white mare.” He once again turned to face forward and said in a quiet voice, “I know you.”

Alarm passed through her like the wind cutting through the trees. “Who are you?” she asked once more, her tone sounding a little more accusatory as she realized that the young man before her could understand her way of speech.

“I… I do parlor trick and sleight of hand for the crowds,” the magician said in a cowed voice, averting his eyes from her for a moment before bringing them back up to meet hers. “Look, I’ve had worse jobs than this, but better ones will come in time… I hope,” he said with an unsure swallow.

“Arachne of Lydia!” The booming voice was heard, drawing the attention of the two to a cage not very far away. The large man started to retell the tale of Arachne's fate to the crowd in a slightly bored-sounding voice, casually mentioning to the crowd how the famed spider was at Volpina’s Midnight Carnival by special request.

‘Special request, indeed,’ Marinette thought sardonically before looking at the cage’s occupant. Her thoughts became puzzled, however, as she took in both the illusion and the reality. “This one… isn’t like the others. I can tell that it's just an ordinary spider’s web, nothing very special about it, but it's not meant to hold the entire world….”

“That is not Volpina’s illusion entirely,” the young man said quietly, showing his white teeth in a small grin. “The little dudette actually believes that she's spinning entire galaxies into her webs as she sees them.”

As the crowd was moved to the next cage over, Marinette took notice of its occupant with a sharply indrawn breath and a shudder of fear. “That one is not an illusion,” the unicorn said with a slight tremor in her voice. “How is it possible that Volpina had actually caught the harpy Celaeno?”

“The same way that she had caught you,” Nino murmured. “Asleep, and completely by chance, but it was definitely her biggest mistake yet.”

Seeing the inquisitive look in her eyes, he clarified, “Volpina’s craft is just enough to hold the harpy, but the dark one’s mere presence is wearing all of Volpina’s spells to practically nothing… and the truth melts away at her magic.”

“As truth usually does to lies and illusions,” Marinette said with a nod of understanding.

“Even so,” the magician continued as he turned back to face her fully once more. “You need to get free before the harpy frees herself! She mustn’t catch you caged.”

“I can’t touch the iron,” the unicorn said as she shook her head sadly. “I don't dare to. My horn could open the lock, but it's out of my reach.” 

This caused the male to frown. “Well, damn,” he said under his breath as he surveyed the problem.

A movement caught his attention from the corner of his eye. He yelped when he focused on it, realizing that the crowd was coming their way. “I have to go,” Nino said as he quickly backed away from her cage. “Don’t do anything until you hear from me, dudette,” he called out as he turned tail and ran.

Marinette didn't have time to puzzle over the magician's behavior before the large man from before took his place in front of her cage, addressing the onlookers crowding around her enclosure. “Behold,” he said in a nearly reverent voice. “The unicorn.”

Nothing more was said after that, but she listened as hearts leaped and inward gasps were inhaled as the people looked at her in awe.

It had reminded her a little of what that hunter had said back in her wood at the start of her journey, and the story that he had told of his grandmother.

It made her wonder what it would be like to grow old and to cry.

“Most shows would end here, for what could they possibly present after a genuine unicorn,” the booming voice had said, shattering the silence. “But Volpina’s Midnight Carnival has one more mystery to show you yet.”

With that, he brought them to the final cage.

“Behold her! The booming voice demanded. “Behold the last, the very end! Behold, Lila!”

Inside the darkened cage sat a shadowy figure sitting on a rocking chair. She looked to be an old crone, with leathery skin, arthritic joints, and a wizened face. She opened her mouth and sang with a reedy, off-key voice, “What is plucked will grow again, what is slain lives on, what is stolen will remain - what is gone is gone.”

Marinette could feel her body becoming lame and feeble, her mane losing its luster. Her head felt heavy with the feeling of death that the coldness that seemed to seep out of “Lila’s” cage had installed upon her.

  
  


“No hero can stand before her, no god can smite her, and no magic can keep her out - or in, for that matter,” the large man intoned grimly. “She is no prisoner of ours, that is for certain. Even while we exhibit her here, she walks among you, touching and taking…”

‘This is only another illusion,’ she thought to herself, trying to shake off the ugliness she felt coming from the dark of that last cage.

“For Lila is Old Age!”

And with that, the crowd dispersed, men, women, and children taking their leave in groups and pairs to go back to their mundane lives.

None of them wanted to be alone after that.

After they had left, Lila exited her cage, throwing off her haggard disguise as she did so, to reveal a much younger version of herself in her place. 

“I enjoyed that,” Volpina said in a slightly accented voice as she stretched out her arms, working the stiffness out of her muscles as she did. “Even with that horrid costume. I guess I’m just stage-struck at heart.”

The man from earlier met her at the door of the cage. “You better check on that damned harpy. I swear that she was working loose this time, “ he grumbled, handing the witch her ornate-looking staff. “Get rid of her before she scatters us across the sky like bloody clouds. She thinks about it all the time, I swear that I can hear her thinking it,” he reiterated with a shudder.

“Oh, be quiet, you buffoon,” she said with a scoff, running a hand through her mud-brown hair to smooth it back into place. “I can turn her into snow or something equally ridiculous if she tries to escape, but I choose to keep her,” she said dismissively, her lips quirking up into a smug look. “No other witch in the world can hold a harpy captive, and none ever will. I would keep her if I could by only feeding her a piece of your liver every day.”

“That’s… nice,” the giant of a man said in a hesitant voice. “But what if she only wants yours?”

“Then I would feed her yours anyway,” Volpina said flippantly with a sneer on her face. “Harpies aren’t  _ that _ bright, you know.”

The Harpy’s cage rattled as the creature showed its annoyance.

The witch walked over to the enclosure, tapping on the iron bars with her staff. “Not yet, not yet,” she cooed at the legendary being within. She smiled at it as she said possessively, “You’re mine. Even if you kill me, you’re mine.”

She stepped back, then looked over at her latest acquisition, murmuring, “Not yet… not yet.” 

Volpina tapped on the bars of Marinette’s cage with her staff once she had reached it, a look of superiority coating over her exotic features. “Whatever your magician friend had said, I must have some skill at my art after all, if I was able to trick a being such as yourself into believing that you were old and foul,” she gloated as she pretended to admire her manicure.

“I wouldn’t boast if I were you,” said Marinette derisively, ignoring the evil whispers of the iron bars once more. “Your death awaits you in that cage, and she can hear and understand every word you speak.”

It was Volpina’s turn to laugh derisively. “Ah, but at least I know where it is! You were out hunting for your own death at the hands of the Red Bull of King Gabriel,” she said with a smirk. “But he is not going to get you. You belong to me.”

“I belong to no one,” the unicorn said in a firm voice. “You of all humans should know better. Free the harpy while you still can, and me with her. You can keep your delusions.”

“I’d rather quit show business first,” the witch growled. “You’d do much better to stay here in this carnival and be false, for, in this universe, only the Red Bull will see you as you truly are.”

With that, she turned and strode off in a huff, slamming the door of her wagon as she entered it like a petulant child.

“What a horrible person,” Marinette muttered to herself as she settled in, waiting for Nino to return.

* * *

It was nearing midnight when she heard footsteps approach her prison. Turning her head, she noticed her magician friend running towards her, looking slightly winded.

“Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner,” he apologized when he came to a stop, hands on his knees as he gasped to catch his breath. “She’d decided to set Igor to watch over me, and he hardly ever sleeps.”

Lifting his head, Nino winked at her, placing a finger next to his nose. “But I asked the dude a riddle, and it always takes him forever to solve riddles.”

Marinette looked at him with doleful eyes, studying him for the moment. She had come to a realization as she had waited for him to return, and it had unnerved her. “There is… magic on me,” she said quietly. “I have never had a spell put on me before. Why didn't you say anything?”

He stood up fully, moving closer to the cage as he commented, “I thought you knew.”

“There has never been a world in which I wasn’t known,” she told him in what sounded like a small whimper, shaking her mane in disbelief.

“Listen,” Nino began as he started to roll up his sleeves. “I knew you were a unicorn the moment that I saw you, dudette, and I knew at that moment, that I was your friend.”

He paused as his face fell a moment later though when his next words were spoken, “But you probably take me for a fool, and so I must be one if you think so. Because the magic is only a simple spell that will vanish as soon as you are free.” He glanced away from her, feeling a slight sting of unshed tears come to his eyes. “But the enchantment of error that you used on me will remain there forever in your eyes.”

The magician took a deep, fortifying breath before turning back to face her. “We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream,” he declared quietly, his eyes gleaming copper with determination in the light of the full moon. “Still, I have read, or heard it sung, that unicorns when time was young, could tell the difference ‘twixt the two - the bright shining and the true, the lips laugh and the heart’s rue.”

“I believe that you  _ are _ my friend,” Marinette assured, touched by her new friend’s words. “Will you help me?”

“If not you, then no one,” he said as a defeated look etched itself upon his face. “You are my last chance.”

A loud rattle sounded from the cage of the Harpy at that moment, making the pair shudder in fear. “I fear that we have very little time,” Marinette observed in a cautious voice. “Can you truly set me free?”

A gleam of glee flared in the magician’s tawny eyes at that question, white teeth set into a blinding smile as he answered, “Another of Volpina’s greatest mistakes was believing me to be as much of a charlatan as herself, for I am Nino the Magician, the last Guardian of the Miraculous, and I am much older than I appear.”

With that declaration, he spoke three heavily accented words, and suddenly, the cage disappeared.

Seeing this, the unicorn’s heart turned as light as a rainbow and she gathered all of her strength to leap free from her prison…

...only for it to seep out of her like water through a sieve.

“The bars are still there,” she remarked in a deadpan voice.

“Yeah… I’m sorry, dudette,” Nino said in an apologetic voice. “I wish that was the spell to free you. Let me try another one…”

He rolled up his sleeves and started to mumble, “The bars are now as brittle as old cheese, which I crumble -“

His voice cut off as he grabbed at the bars, only to let go of them just as quickly, yelping in pain.

“Are you alright?” Marinette asked with concern in her voice.

“You were right in not wanting to touch the bars,” the magician said with pain lacing his voice as he showed her his hands, muttering something along the lines of getting the accent wrong.

“Ouch,” she said in sympathy, taking a look at his blistered and bloody hands.

“No worries, let me try this one,” he said, shaking out his hands to alleviate the pain.

He then made a series of guttural noises, and suddenly something gray and grinning appeared, chuckling muddily as it came limping out of … somewhere. It looked eager to crack the cage open like a nut to devour the contents within. 

It was something that would not be ordered back into the night.

Then another noise was heard from inside the harpy’s cage as it stirred in its supposed slumber. The gray creature turned to look at the disturbance and made a sound of terror as it recognized the harpy before it disappeared into thin air.

“I called it up one other time, a long,  _ long _ time ago,” Nino said with a haunted expression on his face. “I… I couldn't control it then either.”

He took a series of deep breaths to steady himself before he turned toward the unicorn to ask, “Should I try again?”

“Please,” she said quietly, feeling a little shaken herself.

One last spell passed through his lips, but it did not have the desired results.

“No!”

“It's shrinking!”

“The bars!” Marinette cried out in a panic. “They’re talking about touching me-“

“Ngh…ngh…,” Nino grunted painfully as he grabbed the cursed metal once more in the hope of preventing the cage from shrinking further.

Which, somehow, worked.

The magician gasped as he let go of the metal. “That shouldn’t have worked,” he said in between heaving breaths. “Whatever I just did, that should NOT have worked!”

“Please,” the unicorn said after she had regained her calm. “Please, try again.”

“So it’s come down to this,” Nino said as he hung his head in shame, pulling a large ring full of keys from a pocket inside of his green robes. “You deserve a great and powerful wizard, instead you’re stuck with a second-rate pickpocket.”

Even the locks mocked at him in Volpina’s accented voice as he turned the key, calling him “some magician.”

“Oh turn blue, you hag,” he muttered before he threw open the door of the cage.

As soon as Marinette leaped out of the cage, a voice was heard calling out to the magician.

“Okay Nino, I give up,” a voice said as the large man from earlier materialized from around a corner. “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” He asked before finally took in the scene before him, noticing the keys in the magician’s hands and a unicorn on the loose. “You!” 

“Run, dudette!” Nino cried out before the behemoth of a man leaped to grab at him.

“Why you...you… thief!” Igor sputtered in his rage as he chased after the magician. “You’ll be strung up by your bowels to make a necklace for the harpy!” He growled out as he caught up with the smaller man.

“Get out of here, dudette!” Nino shouted as he grappled with the larger man, trying his best to break free of his hold.

She paid neither of them any mind as she glowed softly in the late hour's moonlight, walking calmly amongst the other cages and unlocking each one as she passed.

All of the spelled animals had left, save the spider, who refused to leave her woven universe, no matter how much the unicorn had insisted. 

As Marinette approached the harpy’s cage, she dimly heard the larger man take notice of her. “No… she can’t…” he said in disbelief, too shocked to realize that the smaller man had wiggled free.

“SHE WILL KILL YOU!” Nino screamed in terror. “Run, dudette, while she is still imprisoned. She will kill you if you set her free!” 

The unicorn felt more than heard a low, grumbly voice say to her, “I will kill you if you set me free... set me free.”

She unlocked the cage anyway.

The harpy burst forth from her prison, shattering the wood to pieces and scattering the iron bars. The wind picked up as she ascended into the air, making the midnight sky appear darker with her huge, inky-black wings.

“Oh,” Marinette breathed out in amazement. “You’re just as real as I am”

The harpy stared down at her hungrily, poised to strike and devour the unicorn’s flesh when…

“Now? Now?!” Volpina’s accented voice rang out in disbelief. “How is this possible? There is no way that you could’ve gotten free by yourself!

Her voice caused the harpy to switch her target, her glowing yellow eyes narrowed in vengeful hunger as she sighted her captor.

“I held you!” were the witch’s last words as the harpy descended upon her with sharp talons and even sharper teeth.

“Uh, dudette, we should probably get out of here,” Nino said to Marinette, his face a little green as he looked away from the grotesque sight.

“We should,” she agreed, turning her back slowly from the gruesome scene. “Don’t run. We must walk slowly and pretend to think of other things,” the unicorn cautioned before throwing him a wink. “You should never run away from anything immortal, Nino. It will attract their attention.”

So they began their journey through the night together. Around them were the ghastly noises that the harpy made as she destroyed what remained of that cursed carnival.

But one other sound had followed them out of that dying wood as they made their way towards the burgeoning morning light.

It was the heart-wrenching sound of a spider crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you interested in reading and writing fanfiction, making fanart or cosplaying/roleplaying for Miraculous? Then [ the Miraculous Fanworks Discord Server ](https://discord.gg/mlfanworks) is the place for you! Come and join over 1000 other fans as we share, discuss, and have a general good time bonding over the Fandom we all love!

**Author's Note:**

> Are you interested in reading and writing fanfiction, making fanart or cosplaying/roleplaying for Miraculous? Then [ the Miraculous Fanworks Discord Server ](https://discord.gg/mlfanworks) is the place for you! Come and join over 1000 other fans as we share, discuss, and have a general good time bonding over the Fandom we all love!


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